


Last Request

by Garonne



Category: Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garonne/pseuds/Garonne
Summary: Keith fulfills his promise to Ewen.
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Alison Grant, Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham
Comments: 13
Kudos: 6





	Last Request

**Author's Note:**

> Angst without a happy ending
> 
> Goes AU from Part V of Flight of the Heron, when Ewen sets out from Fort Augustus for Carlisle
> 
> Many thanks to Luzula for beta-reading, and also for writing the song which inspired this: [The Highlands of Scotland](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483335)!

Stepping out of the quartermaster's office, Keith found the sky had become overcast and rain was threatening. He set out across the parade ground towards the stables, intending to check on the swollen forelock his mare had sustained on patrol the previous evening. He had just reached the first stalls of the stable block when Major Farnley approached him.

"Windham. A word, if you please."

Surprised, Keith stopped to speak to the man. He was not well acquainted with Farnley, though they had spoken a handful of times in the officers' mess. Keith himself had been back in Inverness two weeks now, sent here from Fort William after Charles Edward Stuart's escape to France had become known and the search for him called off. 

Farnley held the same rank as Keith himself, but Keith had never seen him lead men into battle, and understood him to be involved in intelligence work.

Now Farnley smiled, his genial mien not reaching his eyes, which were cold and calculating. "A few days ago you were asking questions in the adjutant's office about the whereabouts of Alison Cameron, the wife of one of the Jacobite prisoners. They could not tell you anything at the time, but I have since learnt she is here in Inverness."

Keith eyed him warily. He had not intended to draw attention to Ewen's wife with his questions -- indeed, he had supposed her to be safely in France. Ewen had said as much, during that last painful meeting at Fort Augustus, and the letter for his wife that he had entrusted to Keith had been addressed to a port on the coast of Normandy. Had she somehow got word of her husband's imprisonment and impending trial, and returned to Scotland for that reason?

"I must admit to a certain curiosity," Farnley went on, still in the same friendly tone. "What is your interest in Mrs Cameron?"

Keith frowned, but there was little point in refusing to answer. "I met her when I was Cameron of Ardroy's prisoner, at the very start of the rebellion. And I later met Ardroy again, when he in turn was a prisoner at Fort Augustus." He paused, remembering Ewen's brave, almost cheerful composure, as they said farewell in that damp cellar. "I should like to give his wife news of him."

He wished desperately that Ewen were in France, like the Pretender's son, Lochiel, and so many others. But he was in Carlisle, and there he had been for three weeks now.

Keith had cherished a fervent hope that something would intervene to save Ewen -- that he would escape on his journey south from Fort Augustus, or his followers would mount a daring rescue. But few or none of his followers were still alive, and there had been no rescue, and no escape.

"Are you intending to see this Cameron's wife?" Farnley asked.

"Yes. I shall certainly do so."

Farnley nodded, as though this pleased him. "You'll find her in Chapel Close. I believe a visit to her may well prove useful and informative. She has lately arrived from France, where she must surely have been associating with all manner of Jacobite exiles, and perhaps French officers too -- we know her brother holds a French commission. You'll report back to me if you learn anything useful, I trust? Particularly concerning rumours of another landing."

Keith flushed with anger. "I am no spy, Farnley."

"Of course not." The other man's smile broadened. "But come to see me after your visit nonetheless, won't you? I'm sure you'll have something or other of interest to share."

With a quick salute, he took his leave. Keith frowned after him, furious at the insinuation that he, a soldier, would lend himself to duplicity. And yet he was grateful for the news that Alison Cameron was in Inverness, for he might never have learnt it otherwise.

That evening he took a leave of absence and walked into the town. Some of the townsfolk cast sidelong glances at his uniform. Others were indifferent, redcoats being a common sight in Inverness these days. Keith never came into town without remembering, with bile in his throat, the suffering and despair he had seen here before the summer, the acts of negligence and cruelty in which he had felt himself complicit. Tonight, at least, his mission here was an honourable and decent one.

In his coat pocket was the precious package he had been carrying next to his heart for almost a month now -- the lock of hair and scrap of paper Ewen had entrusted to him for Alison.

He crossed the river and turned into a narrow close behind the meal market. He knocked on the only door. The serving girl who answered eyed him warily, but let him in, perhaps thinking that one redcoat alone could not pose too much danger. She showed him into a small parlour,  
announcing him as Major Windham.

Mrs Alison Cameron -- Lady Ardroy -- sat by the window, writing. Strewn about the room were travelling cases and bandboxes, as though she were in the middle of unpacking or repacking. She came to her feet to greet Major Windham, clearly puzzled by his visit. She must remember him only as her husband's prisoner for a brief time, and knew nothing of what had come after.

She was pale and drawn, a shadow of the woman Keith had known at Ardroy. He considered suddenly how deeply, how fundamentally he himself had changed since those days, and wondered whether anything of it were visible on his own face.

"Madam, I met your husband on the Corryarrick Pass last April, after -- after the battle on Culloden Moor. And again at Fort Augustus, before he was taken south to Carlisle."

Those few sentences were so inadequate to describe what had happened, but how could he say anything more? He could not speak of his desperation to save Ewen from Major Guthrie, nor of the revelation that had struck him like a lightning bolt, showing him another path, another life he would have wished for.

"You have seen him! How -- how was he?"

Keith pictured Ewen, blanched and half-starved in that damp cellar, but standing upright, those clear eyes on Keith, and his fettered hands clasping Keith's in a final farewell. He had to pause a moment before he could be sure his voice would be steady when he answered. "Calm. In good spirits. He entrusted me with a message for you."

He drew the package from his coat pocket and held it out to her. It was a wrench to give it up, the only thing he had of Ardroy's. Now the last link that had bound them together was severed. For one wild moment he wished he had begged for a lock of hair for himself.

Alison took the package with trembling fingers. Keith turned away abruptly, looking out the window, to give her privacy -- and to give himself a few moments to master his own feelings.

"Thank you, Major Windham," Alison said in a low voice, after some minutes of silence.

Keith turned back to face her. She was pale, her eyes bright, but her head held high.

"Thank you for the consideration you have shown to the wife of an enemy to whom you owe nothing."

Keith almost exclaimed aloud. He bit his lip. As though Ewen were nothing to him!

"It is the least I could do," he said quietly.

And how much more I would be willing to do to see him safe and free, he thought. But no sacrifice, however willing, would sway Ewen's destiny now, and Keith's heart burned at his own impotence. He, the fool who had saved Ewen from a quick and honourable death only to let him go to the scaffold.

Alison swallowed, the scrap of paper from Ewen's psalter still clutched in her hands. "I had word he was in Fort Augustus. I came here to see him, but now I have learnt he is already in Carlisle. I am leaving for England in the morning, even if I cannot see him there." She cast him an appealing glance. "Do you think -- Oh, Major Windham, is there any hope?"

The plea struck Keith to the heart. But how could he give her hope, when he had none for himself? He lived in daily dread of hearing, through rumours or official reports, that Ewen was dead. A score of other Jacobite rebels had already been hanged, drawn, and quartered, their heads on Carlisle gate. 

He found he could not speak, and turned his face away.

Behind him, Alison's gasp turned into a sob.

"At Carlisle, I am sure they will let you see him," Keith said after a moment, when he could be sure his voice would not betray him. "There can be no doubt of that."

Her own voice was muffled when she spoke. "I pray you are right, major. I shall leave at dawn tomorrow." 

Keith was struck by a sudden flare of jealousy, quickly dismissed, that she would be at Carlisle with Ewen, and share one last moment with him. And that later, she could mourn Ewen in public, where he could not. But the thought was irrational and unworthy. Nonsensical, even.

"I shall tell him I have seen you," Alison added. "And of your kindness to me. He will be grateful."

"Tell him -- " But what message could he send to Ewen, besides those that were impossible to voice? When they last met, at Fort Augustus, he had already said everything it was possible to say. "Tell him I shall always count him as my friend."

She nodded, looking at him uncertainly, perhaps sensing something of the turmoil in his breast that mirrored her own.

He forced his face into the mockery of a smile. "You must be impatient to see the back of me." He gestured around at the room, and all the signs of preparation for a journey. "I will not detain you longer."

He made his bow, and left her behind, his last link to Ewen Cameron of Ardroy.


End file.
